My Recent MRI
Before I lead you down a path of questioning what is wrong with my health, I’ll clarify; this is an MRI of a different kind — Mistakes, Reflection and Improvement. Over the past year or two, I feel personally a lot of mistakes have been made and being someone who hates to act poorly or do the wrong thing, I tried to almost pretend the mistakes weren’t made and move on without learning from them. Time always catches up with you and if you’re not brave enough to own those mistakes, you’ll always see them as a negative instead of a chance to gain self-improvement.
I’m not sure if it has been getting ahead of myself, getting too big for my boots or a sense of entitlement for the opportunities that have been provided to me but the mistakes that have been made are through a thought process of, you’ll be fine, it’ll sort itself out. The attitude and way of thinking that five year ago, would never have crossed my mind. It almost is like as soon as I felt an urge of comfort or built a level of trust within what I was doing, I felt invincible. Obviously, this isn’t the case, but it’s only taken for these mistakes to catch up with me where I have been able to look for the root cause of them being made in the first place. And this is where the MRI acronym comes in.
As Hannah Montana once said, “Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days”. But in all seriousness, we do, we make mistakes and live to regret them as we move forward in life. A lot of those mistakes are small; taking the wrong turn adding 5 minutes to your trip, miscalculating an equation resulting in the wrong answer or placing an event incorrectly in your calendar. Then we have those larger mistakes which have more long term impacts; breaking the trust of a close relation, lying about a situation at the time of being asked or assuming your actions are okay when they against the policy.
I have recently gone through a few of those more larger mistakes and since coming to light, instead of shoving them under the rug and hoping they go away, I’ve moved forward with the second step of the acronym and have reflected on the decisions made. Through conversations with those either involved or external to the mistake made, I have understood from different perspectives how my actions came across, how they could be viewed by others and also the impact it could have not only on others but myself moving forward. One of the best pieces of advice came from someone directly involved where he said:
“Don’t live in the grey, never sit there a question whether what you have done can be perceived differently. Live by the black and white as that way, there will be no question of your intentions.”
One of these mistakes made was taking advantage of situations I found myself in. Myself, being naïve and showing immaturity, made decisions in circumstances because I felt I was able to. I felt that it was okay and didn’t see the bigger picture of how it could be taken. No ill intentions, no schemes, just a lack of thinking prior to making the decision. And now, upon reflection, I have realised the mistakes made, felt that sick empty feeling in my stomach and been filled with regret over actions taken, a feeling I can’t say I’m too fond of feeling again. With that last comment, is where I know that through reflection, I will achieve the final part of the Acronym being Improvement.
If we are to go through life perfect, without making mistakes or taking the time to reflect on our poor actions, we will never become a better version, we will simply stay as we are. Not to say to make mistakes in all that you, but it is important when a mistake is made, to see it as an opportunity rather than a setback. Reflect on the decisions made and actions taken to move forward as a better human.
A while ago I wrote an article that was based around being able to look at yourself in the mirror and be proud of the person staring back at you. These past few years, I haven’t been able to do as such, but I know where I need to improve, where I need to grow to ensure that soon, in the not so distant future, I can be proud of the man staring back at me.
“We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future”. — Steve Maraboli
